Page 70 of Our Chaotic Love Affair

“Stop.” His voice was low and sexy and my body was asking for another run at Cash Bancroft. “I overreacted.”

“You didn’t. The lie was reckless.”

“The situation was already messy. You made a call. It wasn’t the call I would have made, but it wasn’t wrong to try. We’ll fix it together. It’s not only on you.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

A few minutes later his breathing changed, deepened, and I felt the full weight of him go slack behind me. I didn’t move.

The ring was still on my finger. I could see it in the low light from the city coming through the curtains. I wondered how much the thing was worth. Several women had been admiring it at the gala. I looked at it for a long time, letting my thoughts drift to dangerous fantasies I knew would never come true.

How are you going to tell Melody?

Oh God. Melody.

I ran through the conversation in my head and could not find a version of it that didn’t end with her making a sound only dogs could hear. She’d been suspicious in the Hamptons. When I told her I was dropping everything to come to Cash, she definitely knew something was up. That was the infuriating thing about having a best friend who knew me too well.

And Austin. Austin was going to find out. I would never live it down. I had fallen for the stupid Bancroft charm just like every other woman on planet Earth.

I was going to have to stand next to Cash at a christening someday and smile pleasantly while internally combusting. He was going to be perfectly composed and I was going to be quivering and melting and desperate for more of his attention.

Except that was never going to happen.

Because this was a travel fling. That was the only honest category for it. Two people in a foreign city with manufactured intimacy and high stakes. Too much champagne and a fabricated engagement, and those conditions produced feelings that didn’t survive contact with regular life. I knew this. Everyone knew this.

Mistaking angry sex for something more would be the kind of mistake I couldn’t afford.

After the mess tonight, Cash was unlikely to be enthusiastic about helping me launch my own business. We would go back to the real version of things. He was a Bancroft and I was Melody’s best friend. We occupied completely different stratospheres. We’d be polite at the many functions that were coming our way. Birthday parties. Holidays. Backyard barbecues.

My heart rate picked up and I recognized it for what it was. I was spiraling. I was thinking twenty-two steps ahead and I hadn’t even taken the first one.

Nothing had to change unless I wanted it to. I could go home and keep working for Melody. I was good at it and I loved it. It was my thing. Cash was the one pushing me to change and move out of my safe space.

Nothing had to change.

I was still the same person I’d been before this trip. This had been a detour.

I could put the ring in his hand in the morning and get on a plane and go home and chalk this up to Rome being Rome.

The breathing behind me stayed deep and even while I lost my shit. I closed my eyes. It would be okay. I knew my place. I had my own security blanket.

It was enough.

CHAPTER 25

CASH

Iwas back in the Hamptons. The salt-scented air, the sound of the waves. It was all exactly as I remembered. But something was different. The house was empty except for her. She stood on the balcony, her dark hair with its purple streak dancing in the breeze, wearing nothing but my shirt.

“You’re late,” she said, turning to face me.

I crossed the distance between us in three strides. “I’m never late.”

“For this you are.” Her smile was wicked as she reached for my tie, slowly loosening it. “I’ve been waiting.”

I caught her wrist. “Waiting for what, exactly?”